The Dobrich Art Gallery recently held an exhibition of works by four artists from Bulgaria and Finland. At hand for the opening ceremony was Finnish ambassador Kauko Jamsen. He began by drawing on events from the past: "The Finnish army in 1878 took part in Bulgaria's fight for freedom." In addition, 2008 marked the 90th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In commemoration, a series of cultural exchanges such as this one was being held. "This art exhibition serves as a cultural dialogue, one that symbolised co-operation and friendship between artists and nations," Jamsen  told the gathering.

On prominent display on the gallery walls were the paintings of Elina Forsti. Forsti described herself as a "country girl" from the town of Alajarvi in Finland. As such one of her favourite subjects is meadow barns. This came about when a Norwegian tourist asked her what those funny things in the fields were. She replied that they once served as hay lots for cattle, and had formed an integral part of the Finnish countryside for hundreds of years. But Forsti doesn't paint just any barn. "I chose barns that are decrepit and falling apart," she says, which increasingly encompasses all of them.

She explained that due to changes in livestock rearing and agricultural policy in the past decades, traditional meadow barns have lost their utility and been abandoned.

Her pictures are meant to capture the passing of a cultural heritage, "the soul of the landscape".

Although the wooden barns are actually grey, Forsti employs a variety of contrasting and complementary colours, as seen in Barncode 1: a green barn against a purple sky. Another feature is the openings of the barns and spaces between the lumber. "In this way you can see through them," she says. "Everything is open; nothing is hidden from view."

Also on the walls were paintings of a more abstract nature. Liisa Malkamo of Seinajoki explains how her works are born of something seen, something heard and felt, something that remains in her imagination where it gestates. "At this point in my life I'm concerned with simpler, more minimalist, and conceptual expressions," she said. Examples here include Grenade and Mikros Timvos.

The Finns' Bulgarian counterparts were the husband and wife team of Todor Todorov and Daniella Todorova. Todorova, too, had started off painting. But it was while touring Japan that she became acquainted with paper as a three-dimensional art medium. These days she creates a manifold of paper-derived works.

Spread out on the gallery floor was a large chess set. "I wrapped different `rubbish' bottles in this special paper," she explains. "It conveys a renewal of everything. Nothing is waste, but merely a transformation of one form to another. Here a rakiya bottle becomes a queen, a wine bottle turns into a horse, and beer bottles into pawns."

Todorova had also set up the Japanese Garden consisting of large paper trees on bits of limestone pieces representing a pond. One half was laid against a glass wall, with the other half on the other side, embodying the coming together of disparate elements.

But most esoteric of all were her Art Symbolisms. "This represents gold. That stands for the sun, this one for civilisation," Todorova said in reference to various circular and pyramid symbols in Alchemists' Symbols of Gold. "All symbols are creative. They possess special energy. They have meaning and spirit."

Todorova's husband, on the other hand, is a man of steel. That, at least, is his preferred medium. Todorov creates sculptures mostly by cutting and welding pieces of steel. Among them is Dance, an 85cm-high rotating figure. "This is only a model," said Todorov. The "real life-sized" one is in China. Dance was one of only 20 sculptures selected from around the world to adorn the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. He had sent his plans and specifications there, and local artisans constructed a four-metre replica. Also at the gallery were his Family of Totems and a piece inspired by his toying around with a neck vertebra.

Among the admirers that afternoon was Ivan Stancioff. His Oxford accent stemmed from his stint as a Bulgarian ambassador to the UK. He had also worked for various companies in the US including IBM. But the most intriguing thing about Stancioff (79), was that his father had once studied with Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov (better known as Lenin) in Geneva, Switzerland. "The only thing my father told me about Lenin was that he would always wear sports shoes, long before their mass public appeal."

The exhibition ran in Dobrich from November 12 to 14, after which the works and artists went to Helsinki for the next leg of their exhibition.